Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Location: Formerly Pleasanton Ca, now in Marietta Ga
10,347 posts, read 8,564,711 times
Reputation: 16689
Advertisements
Quote:
Originally Posted by ocnjgirl
Regardless of whose "fault" it is, again how does it make any sense at all to deal with it by removing any ability for the debtor to earn a living? Why are so many so consumed with simply punishing people we feel made decisions we wouldn't have, even if it does nothing at all to solve the problem?
Well if the person is earning an income as a benefit of the debt and refuses to pay, what else can you do? Let them continue to earn and not pay the debt? Loaning the money should be win/win. Student gets a degree and a license to earn a living and then lender gets paid back with interest. In this case it was a win for the student and a lose for the lender.
If you personally had loaned someone $100k of your own money so they could get a degree and now they are earning a living from that and they refused to pay you back, you would be ok with not getting your money back?
I can tell you from experience that is not a good feeling. I loaned a friend $10k to fix a house which he flipped for a $90k profit. He never paid me back. I know he had the money. I kept seeing him post on Facebook the trips and toys he was buying with that $90k.
According to you I should just sit back and let him continue to flip houses and make money.
Sure they do but the total of the student loan isn't known until graduation (how many loans will you take is unknown). Plus the fantasy job is in play, I had 2 kids working for me that really felt they would score a $60,000 job out of college (I was paying 32-40K). One took a 24K job and quit to come back to work for me because he couldn't make ends meet. The other didn't take the 22K lab job he was offered. Going to school for 4 years with the expectation of 60K job offer is simply crazy.
Degrees they got: Graphic arts and Biology. Both were C students at best.
My daughter is 26; all her friends are earning north of $100K. The jobs include technical recruiting in Silicon Valley, EE in San Francisco, business development in Chicago, Inside Sales in NYC, biz dev in LA, biz dev in Las Vegas, art gallery manager in Park City, among others. Her friends going to medical school are a bit jealous.
Well if the person is earning an income as a benefit of the debt and refuses to pay, what else can you do? Let them continue to earn and not pay the debt? Loaning the money should be win/win. Student gets a degree and a license to earn a living and then lender gets paid back with interest. In this case it was a win for the student and a lose for the lender.
If you personally had loaned someone $100k of your own money so they could get a degree and now they are earning a living from that and they refused to pay you back, you would be ok with not getting your money back?
I can tell you from experience that is not a good feeling. I loaned a friend $10k to fix a house which he flipped for a $90k profit. He never paid me back. I know he had the money. I kept seeing him post on Facebook the trips and toys he was buying with that $90k.
According to you I should just sit back and let him continue to flip houses and make money.
You don't sit back. You sue him.
What does that have to do with revocation of licenses?
My daughter is 26; all her friends are earning north of $100K. The jobs include technical recruiting in Silicon Valley, EE in San Francisco, business development in Chicago, Inside Sales in NYC, biz dev in LA, biz dev in Las Vegas, art gallery manager in Park City, among others. Her friends going to medical school are a bit jealous.
Her friends will feel much better once they get jobs in their fields... $100k is not much in realm of a professional job in a major city these days.
I think if the debtor is still working but simply refuses to pay (any amount) on their loans, it's a sign that they don't intend to repay it back. Threatening them with loss of their license might force them to at least think about a payment plan, even if it's just sending $40 a month. Also some of these professions are over saturated anyway and not needed any more, such as lawyers - too many of them. Most people won't see this as some huge loss to society if a few people lose their legal licenses. Although teaching and nursing have far more value.
I think that applies to very few of the people involved.
It's not about what has value (and who decides that in any case? Some law school grads will make millions, some will change the world, others will not be able to find work, just like any other field). It's about how do people pay their loans once you remove that ability? Again, just like the stories about how they saw some guy use food stamps to buy lobster and champagne, the stories about those who can pay but refuse to are a tiny minority.
Most people it's just like with credit card debt, it just snowballs until they are buried. They start out with say $700 a month payments, get a job paying say $600 a week, they have rent, food , car repairs, 6 months in they start to fall behind. Perhaps they put them in deferment until they can find a better job. 5 years later their loan has increased due to the deferred interest, now they are even less able to make the payments. They fall behind. It happens all the time, and it is not hard for it to happen in a country where most people live paycheck to paycheck. Then the interest continues to accrue until the person has no prayer of being able to pay it.
And again, the biggest offenders are not normal colleges, but private schools that prey on inner cities, promising great jobs as a "medical technician" or whatever. The kids who go WANT a better life. The school promises them the world and tells them they won't have to pay a cent, then the school goes after every loan they can find to get that kid in the school. The kid graduates $30,000 in debt for a job that barely exists and pays less than $10 an hour. It is EASY to manipulate kids, and unfortunately, every time someone tries to pass a bill regulating these schools, it gets shot down because too many people at the top are making too much money from them and don't care at all that we pay for it.
The idea that ONLY the student deserves any oversight, and even worse, they they need/deserve to be punished for making a poor decision at 18 is ridiculously unfair.
But back to the topic. As I always say, what is the end game by this action?? Is it to get delinquent folks to start paying or is it to simply punish them.
It is not a "deterrent" that's for sure.
Imagine a young professional 5 years after graduation. She can take her money and:
a) Buy an expensive BMW or Mercedes Benz with large monthly payments, whereby the consequence is she does not have cash to pay her student loans and she defaults, or
b) Pay her student loans where the consequence is she can't afford to buy that new car or take that expensive vacation.
Soo... we want to influence choices and behaviour. We want to persuade people to pay their loans first. We do that buy imposing a severe penalty on non-payment. We must make people aware that if they choose to buy that expensive BMW with their money, they consequence is they may lose their job AND their BMW.
I do think that the public funding structure can be modified in a way where we know that it actually align with the congressional duty to further the arts and sciences as described in the Constitution of the United States by requiring public funding to be used only by students who intend to complete a terminal degree and produce research. That way we don't spend much public funding on those who are trying to use college for job training as the other poster mentioned.... but direct it to those who are in it for academic purposes.
Makes sense to me. Funding is a scarce resource. It is A-OK for the taxpayer to get a vote on its use.
Quote:
Originally Posted by IDoPhysicsPhD
A lot of this comes from the number of universities that are just plain garbage. They aren't even focused on producing solid research as much as they are on producing students with bachelors degrees. Well, tie public funding and loans to research and this problem goes away.
That's one way to do it. But I agree with the premise that we have too many colleges and universities that are garbage. Provide more student aid, and they simply capture it by raising tuition.
There's an old joke that college exists for 3 reasons:
* Sex for the students
* Football for the Alumni
* Parking spaces for the administration
I don't find the above particularly valuable for taxpayers.
The professors! The Graphic Arts degree had ZERO computer classes so it really was an art degree. The Biology major wasn't a bright kid, really only qualified for a lab tech position. Teachers were trying to convince him grad school was the ticket to the really good jobs.......yet that would require more student loans!
High school shouldn't be teaching personal finance in any depth. Personal finance is not an academic area of study. It's a life skill like cooking, keeping up with current events, cleaning, etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by IDoPhysicsPhD
They shouldn't be teaching Sex Ed in depth either. Spend a couple months going over the basics about safety, consequences, and how things work, but leave the rest up to the parents/internet.
But those basics about sex safety, consequences & how things work -- would you call that a legitimate academic area of study? Isn't it a "life skill like cooking, keeping up with current events, cleaning, etc."?
And again, the biggest offenders are not normal colleges, but private schools that prey on inner cities, promising great jobs as a "medical technician" or whatever. The kids who go WANT a better life.
I'd say the offender is borrower.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
